The new “Tigger” owned by Thomas & Nicola Wilton, helmed by Tim Tavinor has 2 new crew members on board, relaxing before the start of racing the “Drags Cup” in Cazaux..
Yes my friends it’s that time of year again, an early morning sunrise & dark evening’s now that the clock’s have gone back & the “Drag’s Cup” begins in Cazaux. This year once again under the excellent “supervision” of one of Europe’s best PRO’s, Yves Leglise, 27 Dragon have assembled to do battle.
Although no racing took place on Thursday, it gave a chance for a few old friends to catch up on how the season is progressing as yet another brand new Petticrow’s Dragon was launched by owners Thomas & Nicola Wilton celebrated (I imagine) by copious amounts of the best French Champagne…
However, yesterday (Friday), 3 races were sailed and rolling back the year’s was one of France’s “special” sailors, Jean Gabriel Pasturaud “Babou” as we all know & love him, helming “Scarlett” won race 1 by a healthy margin. Vincent Jeantet was 2nd & Fred Gourlaouen was 3rd. (there were 5 boats OCS in race 1, my friends in Tigger were one of those).
Race 2 got underway after the wind had filled back in to 5 maybe 6 kts and this time Tim Tavinor managed to keep “Tigger” behind the line at the start to show great speed to take the winning gun. 2nd was Rene’ Bideau helming “Spindrift” and 3rd was Dominique Herpe helming Araok.
Race 3 was sailed in a building breeze that averaged around 10 kts from the south. This race was won by Etienne Lafon helming “Ginkgo”, 2nd was again Rene Bideau and 3rd Tim Tavinor.
So overall after the first sailing day, “Babou” JG Pasturaud leads in “Scarlett” on 17pts, Fred Gourlaouen is 2nd also with 17pts and 3rd is Dominique Herpe 18pts. All very close and with much stronger winds forecast today (Saturday) I’m sure the experienced Yves Leglise will manage to organise 3 or 4 more races. The event finishes on Sunday, so lots more racing to come :-).
Higher, Faster, Longer………….. Stavros.